Legislators: New Taxes Unlikely

November 19, 1987|By Rick Tonyan of The Sentinel Staff

PIERSON — A crisis may be looming in finding money for building schools and roads in Florida, but don't expect new taxes to pay for them next year, members of Volusia County's legislative delegation said.

''You've got to be kidding. In an election year?'' state Sen. Tom Brown, D- Port Orange, said when the subject of new taxes came up during a breakfast meeting in a local restaurant.

Brown and other delegation members predicted the Legislature will debate its controversial extension of the state's 5 percent sales tax to previously- exempt professional services again. But the outcome of that debate is uncertain, they said.

Unless the services tax is repealed and a hunt is launched for a replacement, a new tax probably will not emerge during the legislative session that begins April 5, most delegation members said.

''We have new revenues, if they stay on the books,'' said state Rep. Jack Ascherl, D-New Smyrna Beach. ''I would not expect it to be a high profile year finance-wise.''

But state Rep. Sam Bell, D-Ormond Beach, said if the state does not find new money quickly, it will not be able to finance building projects at universities and community colleges and in the 67 counties.

Since 1975, those projects have been financed by state bond issues. The bonds, backed by a tax on the gross revenue of electric and telephone companies, have financed almost $2.76 billion worth of school construction.

This year the bonds are financing about $300 million worth of projects. After that, no more than about $80 million will remain, and about $5 billion worth of construction still needs to be done, Bell said.

The new state lottery, which was proposed as a way to provide money for education, probably would bring in no more than $140 million per year, far less than is needed for school construction projects, Bell said.

He advocated a law that would earmark whatever money the lottery makes for school construction.

The state bond issues also could be enlarged by either increasing the tax rate on utilities' revenues or extending the tax to cover water, sewer and refuse collection companies, Bell said.

Billions of dollars worth of road projects also are needed, and the state gasoline and sales taxes do not generate nearly enough money to pay for them, Bell said.

''We've hit this real low spot,'' he said. ''It's desperate.''

Delegation members also said they probably will take at least a year off from the controversy over incorporating Deltona. The community's voters in September decided not to form a city and the Legislature should wait until at least 1989 before authorizing another incorporation referendum, members said. Wayne Gardner, a longtime supporter of incorporation, talked with delegation members about the possibility of another referedum in Deltona. He said he would not be disappointed by waiting until 1989.

The delegation on Wednesday finished its first round of public hearings throughout the county. Another round will be held in January in Daytona Beach Shores, Ponce Inlet, Port Orange, South Daytona, New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater, Oak Hill and Daytona Beach.